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I'd love to ditch OSX, but I can't work on Windows. Last time I used Windows was with Windows XP, but now that bash has been ported over, does that mean I shoul

I'd love to ditch OSX, but I can't work on Windows. Last time I used Windows was with Windows XP, but now that bash has been ported over, does that mean I should be able to do all the things I can do on my Macbook? SSH to remote machines, install rvm/mongo/postgres, update all my packages with something similar to brew, etc.

bostand 10y ago
1. Yes it's basically Ubuntu 14.04 minus the gui 2. How can you say you can't use Windows if you haven't used one since xp??
- benjaminl 10y ago
  Since it is basically Ubuntu 14.04, if you install an Windows X Server, you can have a GUI also.
  - Longhanks 10y ago
    Though this is not supported (nor intended for the future), hacked into the system, very slow and full of bugs.
    - bostand 10y ago
      What are you talking about? Exactly what is the "hack" here?
      - kminehart 10y ago
        You're running Windows running an X server running your Linux WM to run your linux apps. It's not a hack per se, but there's definitely more to the equation, and thus a lot more room for error.
        sigjuice 10y ago
        Can you be more specific on what errors? I'm sure there are several good X servers that available for Windows. The arrangement of running X clients that talk to a remote X server is pretty standard.
        dcdevito 10y ago
        I use VcXsrv and it works fine. I edited my bashrc file so now when I open bash I can run any Linux GUI app I want. Piece of cake, runs great and stable, no issues.
        bostand 10y ago
        app -> x server -> display -> your eyes How is this different from native Linux?
    - deleted 10y ago
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    - deleted 10y ago
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joekrill 10y ago
I'd argue that Windows has actually gotten worse. The Bash on Windows thing is nice -- but Windows 10 has become such a huge pain. And obviously this is anecdotal. But I just have so many random problems with it. Things crashing, reboots whenever it wants to, constant slow downs for no apparent reason. I finally just installed Ubuntu on my laptop and I've been much happier.
- john_reel 10y ago
  I’ve had the opposite experience on my Surface Pro 4 and desktop. Everything is much more stable than on Windows 7, where I would often find myself needing to do manual maintenance after something like a power outage. On Windows 10, I haven’t had any huge problems. My Surface Pro 4 (and many others) were disasters on the first versions of Windows 10, but now it is stable.
  - joekrill 10y ago
    Things have definitely gotten _better_ for me (I still run Windows 10 on my Desktop). But I had to basically reinstall everything at one point. One tiny thing that drives me absolutely nuts: it used to be when the lock screen was showing, I could immediately start typing my password to login. Now there's this second or two delay, so the first few characters of my password don't get entered and I almost always "mistype" my password the first time I login. I don't know why, but this really bothers me.
    - freehunter 10y ago
      I thought I was the only one! Everyone I ever complained to has said they didn't have that problem. That alone is enough to make me quit using your software.
- simooooo 10y ago
  My win 10 machine bluescreens several times a week with different errors.
- jedikv 10y ago
dcdevito 10y ago
so...you don't like windows, and the last time you used it was XP? LOL, okay.
- freehunter 10y ago
  To be fair, Windows XP was so awful that if I stopped using it then, I'd be hard pressed to believe it's gotten much better.
yeasayer 10y ago
Unfortunately, you can't. For example, it's impossible to properly install PostgreSQL. Also, no 256 colors support. Currently, there are 733 open issues https://github.com/Microsoft/BashOnWindows/issues https://github.com/Microsoft/BashOnWindows/issues It's still a beta feature. Nowhere near the smooth macOS experience.
- davidandgoliath 10y ago
  Honestly, with the exception of a few commands (ping & such), it's more than sufficient for 'most' stuff. The only glaring issue is if you mount your windows drive in any form, permissions are fudged. Otherwise, perfectly capable. I'm certain there are bugs, but I use it heavily as a daily driver (admittedly, just managing remote systems) and it's mostly flaw free. * Recently swapped from MacOS after ~5 years in their ecosystem * ~15 year linux user prior to that.
padraic7a 10y ago
Why not move to Linux instead? You'll get ssh and a package manager from the get-go. The Dell XPS 13 can be bought with Ubuntu preinstalled so you don't have to do to the trouble of setting things up yourself.
- ackfoo 10y ago
  Why not? Mainly because it isn't finished and has a culture of not explaining anything. When man pages start with a few practical real-world examples, I'll think about it. When some of the more experienced Linux devs figure out a way of purging the stub code created by noobs writing "my first Linux app haw haw" and sending these vile critters on a one-way trip to space, I'll think about it. Linux needs a benevolent dictator, like Steve Jobs, to tell people, "no, your code is shit, your idea is shit, fuck off" instead of a community that indulges every contribution no matter how lame, stupid, confusing and non-functional it is. When I can be sure that my package manager won't break "ls" (and every other basic command) while doing a routine installation of a user level application (glibc is now toast; reinstall), I'll think about it. Linux will stop being garbage when there aren't 17 different places to put everything and every dev assumes that every user knows all of them and is in possession of an encyclopedic knowledge of arcana going back to ENIAC. Explain everything every time!
  - dcdevito 10y ago
    ^ this! I agree wholeheartedly. I was hoping Canonical was going to be this but sadly they have been rather weak.
    - dingdingdang 10y ago
      Canonical seems to embody a company culture which is just about non-directional enough to start mirroring the overall Linux ecosystem culture, so yeah, rather weak.
  - AsyncAwait 10y ago
    This is so much generic FUD, any specifics of the "garbage" you're talking about. It honestly sounds like the generic FUD that was repeated about Linux a decade ago and you either haven't tried it recently or you haven't learned how to use it.* * There was a post recently on HN, where someone was trying to use Homebrew on Linux, rather than the native package manager.
deskamess 10y ago
I use PowerShell with a command line app called chocolatey[1] as my package manager. With that, you can install the apps you need (Chrome, Firefox, for ssh use putty{ssh} or win32-openssh[2] from Microsoft, cmder for a console, curl, vim, git, etc). [1] https://chocolatey.org/ https://chocolatey.org/ [2] https://chocolatey.org/packages/openssh https://chocolatey.org/packages/openssh
- hendersoon 10y ago
  Chocolatey package management is essentially built-in to Windows 10. It unfortunately hasn't gained much traction. http://www.howtogeek.com/224111/how-to-use-packagemanagement-aka-oneget-on-windows-10/ http://www.howtogeek.com/224111/how-to-use-packagemanagement...

bostand 10y ago

1. Yes it's basically Ubuntu 14.04 minus the gui 2. How can you say you can't use Windows if you haven't used one since xp??

benjaminl 10y ago
Since it is basically Ubuntu 14.04, if you install an Windows X Server, you can have a GUI also.
- Longhanks 10y ago
  Though this is not supported (nor intended for the future), hacked into the system, very slow and full of bugs.
  - bostand 10y ago
    What are you talking about? Exactly what is the "hack" here?
    - kminehart 10y ago
      You're running Windows running an X server running your Linux WM to run your linux apps. It's not a hack per se, but there's definitely more to the equation, and thus a lot more room for error.
      - sigjuice 10y ago
        Can you be more specific on what errors? I'm sure there are several good X servers that available for Windows. The arrangement of running X clients that talk to a remote X server is pretty standard.
      - dcdevito 10y ago
        I use VcXsrv and it works fine. I edited my bashrc file so now when I open bash I can run any Linux GUI app I want. Piece of cake, runs great and stable, no issues.
      - bostand 10y ago
        app -> x server -> display -> your eyes How is this different from native Linux?
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]

joekrill 10y ago

I'd argue that Windows has actually gotten worse. The Bash on Windows thing is nice -- but Windows 10 has become such a huge pain. And obviously this is anecdotal. But I just have so many random problems with it. Things crashing, reboots whenever it wants to, constant slow downs for no apparent reason. I finally just installed Ubuntu on my laptop and I've been much happier.

john_reel 10y ago
I’ve had the opposite experience on my Surface Pro 4 and desktop. Everything is much more stable than on Windows 7, where I would often find myself needing to do manual maintenance after something like a power outage. On Windows 10, I haven’t had any huge problems. My Surface Pro 4 (and many others) were disasters on the first versions of Windows 10, but now it is stable.
- joekrill 10y ago
  Things have definitely gotten _better_ for me (I still run Windows 10 on my Desktop). But I had to basically reinstall everything at one point. One tiny thing that drives me absolutely nuts: it used to be when the lock screen was showing, I could immediately start typing my password to login. Now there's this second or two delay, so the first few characters of my password don't get entered and I almost always "mistype" my password the first time I login. I don't know why, but this really bothers me.
  - freehunter 10y ago
    I thought I was the only one! Everyone I ever complained to has said they didn't have that problem. That alone is enough to make me quit using your software.
simooooo 10y ago
My win 10 machine bluescreens several times a week with different errors.
jedikv 10y ago

dcdevito 10y ago

so...you don't like windows, and the last time you used it was XP? LOL, okay.

freehunter 10y ago
To be fair, Windows XP was so awful that if I stopped using it then, I'd be hard pressed to believe it's gotten much better.

yeasayer 10y ago

Unfortunately, you can't. For example, it's impossible to properly install PostgreSQL. Also, no 256 colors support. Currently, there are 733 open issues https://github.com/Microsoft/BashOnWindows/issues https://github.com/Microsoft/BashOnWindows/issues It's still a beta feature. Nowhere near the smooth macOS experience.

davidandgoliath 10y ago
Honestly, with the exception of a few commands (ping & such), it's more than sufficient for 'most' stuff. The only glaring issue is if you mount your windows drive in any form, permissions are fudged. Otherwise, perfectly capable. I'm certain there are bugs, but I use it heavily as a daily driver (admittedly, just managing remote systems) and it's mostly flaw free. * Recently swapped from MacOS after ~5 years in their ecosystem * ~15 year linux user prior to that.

padraic7a 10y ago

Why not move to Linux instead? You'll get ssh and a package manager from the get-go. The Dell XPS 13 can be bought with Ubuntu preinstalled so you don't have to do to the trouble of setting things up yourself.

ackfoo 10y ago
Why not? Mainly because it isn't finished and has a culture of not explaining anything. When man pages start with a few practical real-world examples, I'll think about it. When some of the more experienced Linux devs figure out a way of purging the stub code created by noobs writing "my first Linux app haw haw" and sending these vile critters on a one-way trip to space, I'll think about it. Linux needs a benevolent dictator, like Steve Jobs, to tell people, "no, your code is shit, your idea is shit, fuck off" instead of a community that indulges every contribution no matter how lame, stupid, confusing and non-functional it is. When I can be sure that my package manager won't break "ls" (and every other basic command) while doing a routine installation of a user level application (glibc is now toast; reinstall), I'll think about it. Linux will stop being garbage when there aren't 17 different places to put everything and every dev assumes that every user knows all of them and is in possession of an encyclopedic knowledge of arcana going back to ENIAC. Explain everything every time!
- dcdevito 10y ago
  ^ this! I agree wholeheartedly. I was hoping Canonical was going to be this but sadly they have been rather weak.
  - dingdingdang 10y ago
    Canonical seems to embody a company culture which is just about non-directional enough to start mirroring the overall Linux ecosystem culture, so yeah, rather weak.
- AsyncAwait 10y ago
  This is so much generic FUD, any specifics of the "garbage" you're talking about. It honestly sounds like the generic FUD that was repeated about Linux a decade ago and you either haven't tried it recently or you haven't learned how to use it.* * There was a post recently on HN, where someone was trying to use Homebrew on Linux, rather than the native package manager.

deskamess 10y ago

I use PowerShell with a command line app called chocolatey[1] as my package manager. With that, you can install the apps you need (Chrome, Firefox, for ssh use putty{ssh} or win32-openssh[2] from Microsoft, cmder for a console, curl, vim, git, etc). [1] https://chocolatey.org/ https://chocolatey.org/ [2] https://chocolatey.org/packages/openssh https://chocolatey.org/packages/openssh

hendersoon 10y ago
Chocolatey package management is essentially built-in to Windows 10. It unfortunately hasn't gained much traction. http://www.howtogeek.com/224111/how-to-use-packagemanagement-aka-oneget-on-windows-10/ http://www.howtogeek.com/224111/how-to-use-packagemanagement...